House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee Supporting Scotland’s Economy Oral and written evidence Oral evidence taken and ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 1 December 2010 and 26 January 2011 HC 657 i-ii Published on 27 February 2012 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £11.50 The Scottish Affairs Committee The Scottish Affairs Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Scotland Office (including (i) relations with the Scottish Parliament and (ii) administration and expenditure of the offices of the Advocate General for Scotland (but excluding individual cases and advice given within government by the Advocate General)). Current membership Mr Ian Davidson MP (Labour/Co-op, Glasgow South West) (Chair) Fiona Bruce MP (Conservative, Congleton) Mike Freer MP (Conservative, Finchley and Golders Green) Jim McGovern MP (Labour, Dundee West) Iain McKenzie MP (Labour, Inverclyde) David Mowat MP (Conservative, Warrington South) Pamela Nash MP (Labour, Airdrie and Shotts) Simon Reevell MP (Conservative, Dewsbury) Mr Alan Reid MP (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute) Lindsay Roy MP (Labour, Glenrothes) Dr Eilidh Whiteford MP (Scottish National Party, Banff and Buchan) The following members were also members of the committee during the parliament: Cathy Jamieson MP (Labour/Co-op, Kilmarnock and Loudoun) Mark Menzies MP (Conservative, Fylde) Graeme Morrice MP (Labour, Livingston) Fiona O’Donnell MP (Labour, East Lothian) Julian Smith (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon) Powers The committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No. 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/scotaffcom. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Dr Rebecca Davies (Clerk), Duma Langton (Inquiry Manager), James Bowman (Senior Committee Assistant), Gabrielle Hill (Committee Assistant) and Ravi Abhayaratne (Committee Support Assistant). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Scottish Affairs Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6123; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. List of witnesses Wednesday 1 December 2010 Page Philip Rycroft, Director General, Innovation and Enterprise, and Chief Executive, Better Regulation Executive, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Susan Haird, Deputy Chief Executive, UK Trade and Investment Ev 01 Wednesday 26 January 2011 Colin Borland, Public Affairs Manager, Federation of Small Businesses, Bernadette Kelly, Director General for Market Frameworks Group, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Iain McMillan, Director, CBI Scotland, Lauren McNicol, Policy Executive, CBI Scotland, Janette Harkess, Director of Policy and Research, Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI), and Alf Young, Special Economic Counsel to the SCDI Board, Scottish Council for Development and Industry Ev 09 List of written evidence 1 UK Trade and Investment Ev 33 1a Supplementary UK Trade and Investment Ev 38 2 CBI Scotland Ev 42 3 Federation of Small Businesses Ev 43 4 Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance Ev 46 5 RBS Group Ev 47 6 Lloyds Banking Group Scotland Ev 50 7 Supplementary Scottish Council For Development and Industry Ev 53 8 The Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) Ev 54 9 Ann McKechin MP Ev 57 cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [SO] Processed: [22-02-2012 16:08] Job: 018777 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/018777/018777_o001_th_Corrected 1 Dec 2010 HC 657-i.xml Scottish Affairs Committee: Evidence Ev 1 Oral evidence Taken before the Scottish Affairs Committee on Wednesday 1 December 2010 Members present: Mr Alan Reid (in the Chair) Fiona Bruce Fiona O’Donnell Cathy Jamieson Simon Reevell Jim McGovern Lindsay Roy David Mowat Dr Eilidh Whiteford ________________ Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Philip Rycroft, Director General, Innovation and Enterprise, and Chief Executive, Better Regulation Executive, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Susan Haird, Deputy Chief Executive, UK Trade and Investment, gave evidence. Q1 Chair: We welcome back Philip Rycroft and we promote private sector growth in Scotland, we are thank Susan Haird for coming. We are delighted to obviously working with SDI to encourage inward see both of you this afternoon. We are expecting investment into Scotland. I shall be happy to say more Divisions in the Chamber at any minute, so I am about that when we get to the question stage. We work afraid we could be interrupted. I start off by asking with companies throughout the UK to help them both of you to introduce yourselves and say what your internationalise. Most of our services are open to Departments are doing to encourage private sector companies in Scotland and those that are not are growth in Scotland. covered by SDI. For example, we have teams of Philip Rycroft: I am Philip Rycroft. I am the Director international trade advisers and frontline staff General of Innovation and Enterprise in the throughout the English regions. SDI has teams of staff Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I am doing similar work throughout Scotland, but services also Chief Executive of the Better Regulation like our Tradeshow Access Programme that helps Executive in the same Department. I have not come companies to exhibit overseas, our missions and our with a long statement, so I shall keep this very brief chargeable service, called OMIS, are all available to as you probably want to get into the questions. The companies in Scotland and are taken up by them. key issue is: which areas of BIS’s responsibility are relevant to growth in Scotland? The very Q2 Chair: Is your remit to help companies in straightforward answer to that is: where BIS has Scotland to attract business from abroad, or would it responsibility for reserved policy areas that are also include attracting foreign-based companies to relevant to the Scottish economy, our policies will, come and set up in Scotland? hopefully, have a positive impact on growth in Susan Haird: Essentially, we do two things: we Scotland. In some respects, I can do no better than attract inward investors from around the world to draw to the Committee’s attention the paper The Path come into the UK, including Scotland—there are to Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth ways of working with the English regions and published on Monday by BIS and the Treasury, which devolved Administrations to ensure that—and then we gives you a very comprehensive record of policy help companies based anywhere in the UK to go domains where BIS is active. I would be very happy international through exporting outward investment, to talk through with you in some detail, if you wish, joint venturing and partnering. The arrangements for those that pertain to the UK as a whole and therefore Scotland are slightly different from England because are relevant to Scotland. Examples of those would be SDI has its own teams of frontline advisers. competition policy; regulation policy; issues around aspects of access to finance policy; and some aspects Q3 Chair: Perhaps you would explain how you of innovation policy. These are areas where BIS is operate differently in Scotland compared with, say, the active across the UK and where, therefore, our work English regions. Maybe you would explain where the is very relevant to growth in Scotland. division of responsibility is between yourselves and Susan Haird: I am Susan Haird, Deputy Chief SDI. Executive of UK Trade and Investment. UK Trade and Susan Haird: If I may, I will take the question in two Investment is the Government body, part-owned by parts: the trade side and the investment side. On the the Business Department and part-owned by the trade side, in the English regions at the moment we Foreign Office, with responsibility for both have an international trade director co-located within encouraging UK companies to go international and each regional development agency. Those inward investment into the UK. We work very closely international trade advisers have contract staff with the devolved administrations, and in Scotland we working throughout that region and they will do one- work very, very closely with Scottish Development to-one counselling with English companies in the International. In terms of what we are doing to region. They will advise those companies first about cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [22-02-2012 16:08] Job: 018777 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/018777/018777_o001_th_Corrected 1 Dec 2010 HC 657-i.xml Ev 2 Scottish Affairs Committee: Evidence 1 December 2010 Philip Rycroft and Susan Haird how they might get ready to export, if they aren’t it in practical terms, typically where those policies are ready, and which of our services might be appropriate. driven through Scottish Enterprise in Scotland that is They will signpost them to our posts overseas. We a matter for the Scottish Government, and where the have staff in 96 markets around the world and those arrangements are in England currently they are held staff are there to serve Scottish companies as well. by the RDAs but obviously they will move into a new space under the auspices of the new Government. In Q4 Chair: I am sorry to interrupt. Does SDI have that context clearly a lot of detailed work is driven staff abroad as well? through that which will help all different parts of the Susan Haird: They have some staff but not many, and community to start businesses. Work has been done by they are free to use the services of all our posts BIS on women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs from overseas.